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wannabeafreak -

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self-taught-mba -

Listened to the first 5 minutes.

Up thru his regrets of Pimsleur. Listen more later. . .maybe.

Now my opinion:

I know I'm going to get flamed really bad for this but here goes (I'm no stranger to controversy
on the board anyway). I'm really not all that impressed. His pronunciation is pretty good, his
intonation is fairly decent, but he still obviously has a foreign accent. I'm pretty busy and I
must admit conversation is little boring and wasn't very complicated.

He's done what a lot of self-study people did: got some help with the beginning pronunciation,
grabbed some tapes and watched some TV.

I think he discounts the benefit of Pimsleur although I have several major beefs with them also.
(another thread in the planning)

In fact, he did a lot of what I've done and I think my level was comparable to his before coming
to China. Am I bragging or trying to –no. I've mentioned elsewhere that I've met many
self-taught people who were at a level that many would-be surprised at. Why do they make progess
so quickly? part is motivation but a large part I proffer is do to the focus on needful things
first.

I am impressed with his resolve to study on his own and the same with anyone, but not so much with
the outcome which I've seen with other self-taught people. (I didn't listen to his English) I'm
more impressed with him learning to speak three languages (at once?) and that says something
(especially learning the mess that is English!).

I'm just saying that there's absolutely no reason why each and every single student of Chinese
cannot reach that level in the same amount of time. I've met people who spent three years in
college courses of Chinese and are not nearly at that level.

And then I meet the self-taught people who come here and just run circles around them. So not
criticizing him by any means I'm just saying that this outcome is not special or extraordinary.
Unfortunately, not everyone is able to self-study on their own. One has to weed through myriads of
worthless information before you find useful tools and methods. In some people never do find the
right way, and some of us get lucky. But you've also heard the rant about the current situation
about teaching Chinese. I'm just saying there's absolute no excuse why students coming out of the
new American college course shouldn't be at the same level or higher.

So yes, take this man is an example of what to do. Hopefully institutions will begin to copy it
too. I'm not trying to bring him down or his accomplishment; I'm just trying to say that this
accomplishment is well within reach for each and every one of us.
Don't think that it's not possible for the average person—it is. JIA1 YOU2!!










geraldc -

I'm more impressed by the interviewer, but I guess if you're a diplomat you get paid to learn
languages and talk to people










wushijiao -

I think they are both pretty good, especially in light of the fact that they are learning outside
of China. I agree with self-taught-mba that self-taught people are often more efficient at the
beginning stages. But, most successful self-taught people, like these guys, are already
multilingual, and thus know how to study languages. But many monolingual English speakers simply
don’t know what they need to do, unfortunately.










ange9s -

I would think taking classes is more efficient than self-study, since you don't always design your
own curriculum around fundamentals. That doesn't mean someone in a university class will always
learn the language better, though; when taking language classes in college, I wasn't usually too
concerned about how well I learned the language as long as I got a good grade. His mandarin was
okay, I think that's about the speaking level you should be aiming for after two years of study.










Lugubert -

Max being a Swede, I'm not surprised. I'ts for example not at all unusual to find people around
here who are sufficiently fluent in English and German. My youngest sister, who has had only 9
years of formal schooling, manages English, German, French, and Spanish.

Besides those languages, which I manage, I'm pretty fluent in Dutch, but have had only one year of
Chinese and one semester plus of Hindi, so I can't express myself very well in those languages,
and understand very little of them when spoken. Judging from my progress so far, if I were to
concentrate on Chinese, and found a conversation partner, I would be able to keep up a simple
conversation in a year or less. For several reasons, however, I'm going to concentrate on Hindi in
the autumn, and don't doubt for a moment that I will be fairly proficient by next spring.

My major problem in learning is that by my advanced age, I've lost most of any in-born mechanisms,
so I have to use what methods and experiences I might have acquired through studying lots of
languages at elementary university levels. For example, when I in my 20's worked in Amsterdam, I
picked up Dutch from scratch to a fair fluency in 1.5 months. When younger still, I couldn't even
avoid learning foreign words. Having noticed them, they just stuck. Would that I had been more
intent on learning other languages than those required in school in those days!

It's perhaps interesting, at least to me, that I have studied languages from widely different
language families (Hindi, Chinese, Arabic...), and I work as a full-time translator (nowadays
practically only medical texts from Germanic languages into Swedish), and I still don't understand
how I work or what happens when I'm learning languages or translate.










mind_wander -

I kinda self-study, almost the same way like max, he isn't that bad for a foreigner, very close
and sounds like me. I have alittle chinese mandarin, then mix it with English at the same time.










bomaci -

Ok I guess I should come out of the woodwoork. The person interviewed is me.



Quote:

I know I'm going to get flamed really bad for this but here goes (I'm no stranger to controversy
on the board anyway). I'm really not all that impressed. His pronunciation is pretty good, his
intonation is fairly decent, but he still obviously has a foreign accent. I'm pretty busy and I
must admit conversation is little boring and wasn't very complicated.

Yeah I know I missed some tones. But I'm confident that if I 继续努力 I should get them
straightened out. 大山 is safe for the time being .



Quote:

I think he discounts the benefit of Pimsleur although I have several major beefs with them also.
(another thread in the planning)

Maybe I am discounting the benefits, but I think Pimsleur falls very short when it comes to
vocabulary. At first I felt that it didn't matter as long as I got the tones and the grammar down.
However I have now discovered that vocabulary is tremendously important in mandarin. For me it is
the hardest part of the language, because it is a problem that will always be there. You will
always have to learn new words so the sooner you get started the better. Pimsleur spends too much
time to only teach you 500 words. Furthermore some people claim that having done Pimsleur you will
have perfect pronounciation. Obviously this is not so. I can repeat all the Pimsleur sentences
perfectly, but I am still not tone perfect in conversation.




Quote:

In fact, he did a lot of what I've done and I think my level was comparable to his before coming
to China. Am I bragging or trying to –no. I've mentioned elsewhere that I've met many
self-taught people who were at a level that many would-be surprised at. Why do they make progess
so quickly? part is motivation but a large part I proffer is do to the focus on needful things
first.

I am absolutely sure there are people who have come a lot further than me in the same amount time.
I work full time so can only study chinese in my spare time. I'm sure someone who studies fulltime
and used efficient methods would come alot further than I have in the same amount of time.










mind_wander -

bomaci,
When I listened to the interview, I heard alot of "na ge" alot. I just curious what kinds of
chinese tv series do you watched when you were using it as a learn tool. I do the same!










bomaci -



Quote:

When I listened to the interview, I heard alot of "na ge" alot. I just curious what kinds of
chinese tv series do you watched when you were using it as a learn tool. I do the same!

I think my overusage of "na ge" is more due to lack of vocabulary than anything else
Anyway the TV series I'm learning from is 我爱我家. From what I have heard it was the first
sitcom ever aired in china.












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